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How to Confront Your Fears and Succeed in Starting Your Own Business

Man naturally was created to learn by failing. From life as a toddler till it begins to run a child’s life is all about trying and failing.

Sadly once the child gets into school he learns that for every failure he gets punished and so gradually the fear of failure begins to build. It grows with the child into adulthood and instead of doing anything ambitious that might result to a big failure a man would rather stick to what he knows and what works. Trying to go out on a limb becomes suicidal.
Parents and relatives also fuel the fear of failure. As a kid I remembered the warnings and expectations from everybody that I finish school, get job and settle down. Anything more ambitious than that would amount to calling on failure and was not acceptable. It took years for them to accept that I would never choose the average path they advocated for me.

Many young people with visions and dreams of achieving great things have failed to do so because they succumbed to the expectations and dictations of parents and relatives. In Nigeria, thousands go to college to study courses they never had a liking to all to get degrees. At the end they live average lives and bury their dreams.
If you are going to succeed and achieve at least some of the things you dream of you’ll have tolearn to confront your fears, and subdue them.

The Worst Fears
The fears that contribute mostly to stopping people from taking important steps towards their goals are;Fear of Failure and Fear of Criticism.The two go together. You are afraid of trying because you are afraid of failing and afraid of what people will say when you fail.

Concept of Neuro-Self AssuranceI developed this method of confronting my fears early in my college years. Whenever you have these fears stopping you from taking a step ask yourself the worst case scenario that would result from failing. If the worst case scenario wasn’t as serious as resulting in any body’s death or bankruptcy I went ahead. So ask yourself what’s the worst thing that can happen if you start something. You’ll realize that not much will happen when you fail. You reassure yourself of the fact that you are not doing anybody any harm or damage by trying.

Value ThinkingWhenever you get afraid of starting something maybe a business or writing a book think of the benefits you would derive if you went ahead and did what you dream of doing. Shut everything else and consider the value and gains in what you are setting out to do.

Once when I co-authored a small book for college freshmen I had serious doubts about putting my lean finances into publishing a book we weren’t sure would sell. But I and my partner began to list and consider what we stood to gain if we went ahead and published the book. We saw that we stood to gain more money than we ever had if we came up with a good marketing strategy. We would also become very popular among our colleagues in the college. Those two were motivations that spurred us to go ahead and work out the best way to ensure we succeeded.

The Mastermind EffectThe best way to shield you from negative influences is to move with the right persons or groups. Get along with people of like minds and you’ll soon get immunity from these fears. If you want to become a business person but have doubts move in and join business organizations in your area and learn from the experiences of other successful people. Learn how they confronted their challenges.

If you are a young person about to start your own business get mentorship from these people who through their lives have proved that young people can start and succeed at their own business. Don’t meet with a government retiree who has a hundred reasons why a young man will fail in business even though he has never even managed or run a pop corn stand.

If you intend to become a successful author and writer don’t listen to people that have only written letters in their life. They’ll only want to prove to you how difficult it is to make it as a writer especially in my country Nigeria. Instead study and learn from published authors and writers and take the bold step. You get the drift?